February 13, 2023: Gary Hart

Authoritarian impulses are rising in the United States and around the world. Gary Hart argues that the very ideals of America’s founding-including a commitment to the will of the people-can redeem American democracy and keep the light of freedom burning for all the world to see.
Hart is a former United States Senator, strategic advisor, teacher, author and lecturer. He is the president of the business advisory group at Hart International, Ltd. Hee serves as chair of both the International Security Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of State and of the Threat Reduction Advisory Council at the Department of Defense. He is also chair of the American Security Project, as well as co-chair of the US-Russia commission. Previously, Hart was co-chair of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st-century, performing the most comprehensive review of national security since 1947, predicting terrorist attacks on America, and proposing an overhaul of U.S. national security structures and policies for the age of terrorism and post-Cold War new century. Hart represented Colorado in the U.S. Senate from 1975 to 1987 and was a candidate for his party’s nomination for President in both 1984 and 1988. During his time in the Senate, Hart served on the Senate Environment Committee, the Budget Committee, the Intelligence Oversight Committee, the Armed Services Committee, and was an original founder of the military reform caucus. Hart is also widely recognized as among the first to predict the end of the Cold War. He was a founding member of the Board of Directors on U.S.-Russia Relations, a co-chair of the Council task force which produced the report “America Unprepared-America Still at Risk,” in October of 2002, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Hart has been Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, a Chatham Lecturer, and a McCallum Memorial Lecturer at Oxford University, a Regents Lecturer at the University of California, and a Global Fund Lecturer at Yale University.